JHS Pedals releases 424 Gain Stage Preamp - based on the Tascam Portastudio 424, and inspired by Mk.gee's use of that device

It’s evident that Josh Scott has been much impacted by the sounds of the fast-rising Mk.gee - whose recent Two Star & the Dream Police Album was largely based on the sounds Mk.gee was able to extract from that Tascam 424 Portastudio device.

Interestingly my good friend Marc at Tark Audio did a similar exercise with his Tark 144 - which was based on the earlier Tascam 144 Casette Portastudio - and is also excellent!

And albeit this 424 Gain Stage is based on a different source device - in many ways it’s a kind of distillation / Junior version of JHS’s well-loved and more expansive Colour Box Studio Style Console / Preamp. Where that has 10 knobs and 2 x 2-way toggle switches, while the 424 Gain Stage makes do with 5. They both share an XLR Line Out in common - for a direct connection to any sound board / PA / recording device or indeed ’Console’!

Controls - Volume (Master), Gain 2 (2nd Stage Gain), Gain 1 (Input Gain), Bass, Treble.

Ports - Mono TS In, 9V DC [-] 50mA, Mono TS Out, XLR Out (with Ground Lift switch),

The really cool thing about this pedal is that you have 3 Independent Gain Stages - where the Master Volume also adds to the Input Stage 1 Gain, and Stage 2 Gain - so by varying the degree of those 3 controls - you can get a fast range of gain with varying gain structure - covering Boost, Overdrive, Distortion and Fuzz sounds - you can get everything from jangly funky overdrive to searing Distortion and Fuzz even. Where the 2-Band EQ further shapes the output.

Another excellent 3 x Gain Stage pedal is the Trebled Youth from Tone for Punk - which essentially combines a Treble Booster, with and Overdrive and Distortion - sort of progressive gain stages - which of course also yield an incredibly wide variety of tones and gain structures.

So the 424 Gain Stage’s Bass and Treble controls replicate the Low and High controls from the Portastudio - where that is obviously a 4-track device - and here we’re reduced to a single channel strip. I would have been tempted to throw in a Mids control too! I know it’s not cannon - but surely the exercise is about building as good a pedal as is possible!

Still it’s really cool - and covers off a lot of artists’ sounds - whom I’m not particularly familiar with - d4vd, Steve Lacey, Malcolm Todd, and Omar Apollo. It also covers bits of Radiohead which I’m very familiar with, and then the somewhat lesser Mac Demarco and Spoon also.

In truth I only really have concern and consideration for Mk.gee and Radiohead - those alone are plenty motivation enough. While I’m really not that fussed by the associations - the device seems to perform pretty exceptionally and exactly as it’s supposed to - and that’s good enough for me. I was pretty much sold on it early on in the dialogue - especially when considering it as a sort  Junior version of the Colour Box!

One of these is definitely in my future - but it won’t be this month - as I’ve long since blown the budget - with 22 pedals already acquired, and where the threshold limit is 20 a month. So I’m over budget and over subscribed - and it’s not even half-way through the month yet. It’s always a little like buses - where pedal releases seem to happen in clusters.

The 424 Gain Stage is $249 direct from the JHS Store, and I can see it’s £249 at Andertons. So I will definitely look to snap one up next month. I’ve got a couple of Thorpy’s on the target list, and I’m looking forward to the typically Halloween edition of my Full Metal Racket rundown - so plenty happening in the next couple of months!